I think i may have a sore throat tomorrow, i have been on a chat-a-thon over the last few days ! I met Kirsty at her favourite coffee shop yesterday and i think we had a bout a three hour catch up and of course spent some time talking about Scrapstars :) Then today i went to meet my friend Val for lunch and we chatted from 12 - 3, straight from there I went to see my mate Claire so from around 3.15 to 8.15 yes a straight five hours, Claire and i were catching up. Craig can't believe that women can get together and talk for five hours straight! It's always the same when i see Claire, I usually go straight from work and stay from about 5 - 10 and Craig is always amazed, i just say "I could have been there until midnight and we still wouldn't have run out of things to say"! It's good to catch up with friends, and even though we don't get to see each other as often as we would like, we just pick up where we left off, it's great, love you guys. :)

I cant believe how long it's been since I blogged but i have been consumed with work and the fast approaching Scrapstars retreat. Things have been pretty grim at work, with the recession hitting hard and work being very thin on the ground. We have had to carry out redundancies and i have found myself (very reluctantly) promoted to personnel department (just me with a little help from my colleague Mel). It has been grim following the redundancy procedure at our factory in Liverpool and has meant me putting a lot of extra days in at work, last week I worked every day, Yes, that was a shock to the system, it's been a while !!!! Anyway, my solace has been my crafting and (ignoring most of the housework last week) in the few snatched half hours here and there that I did have, I did my best to switch off with a bit of crafting. I have been making lots of cards, yes cards !!!! for my Stampin Up demos, and have also managed to do a scrapbook layout with Stampin Up papers. This is not ...

Well for those of you who know me through the medium of craft, you will know i have never been much of a cardmaker, well as you can see from my 4th Feb post, "I have gone over to the dark side" and am totally hooked on Stampin Up. I mentioned we had a great time at my workshop/party with a great mixture of friends from different parts of my life, many who had never met before but it was a great night, great atmosphere and great Demo. So I have signed up! Yes me to be an Independent Stampin Up Demonstrator. Today was my induction with Julie and three other ladies, it was great, with a real team spirit and julie is a great mentor (or up line in Stampin Up speak) Julie also provided our lunch and brought these lovely cupcakes from her great friend Mel https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Cupcakes-by-Mel/153344434749199  Don't know if that will work, i haven't added links before. Here's a picture.

Well I know these papers are a little old, but I've had them a while and just keep touching and stroking them! On Wednesday a new crafting friend Janine came to my house, she's a brand new scrapbooker (well she's done a little bit) and I had two sheets of the main paper and a few sheets of the rest of the collection. I put one in front of Janine and asked "does this scare you to death" her answer was yes, this looks like advanced scrapbooking. So we worked simultaneously with me instructing Janine and both of us creating this layout. Janine was really happy with hers and I have a few finishing touched to add to mine like were I will place the little cream flowers and the bling, oh and what photo to add!! The collection is called Butterfly Garden. I love the little cupid fairy note card at the top right and can't wait to work with the pieces of paper I have left over.....................................

Well you probably saw from my last post I had a stampin up party, well a few of us decided it would be a good idea to make the weekend even better (in a creative way) to have a little kitchen table retreat on Saturday. So Lesley and Kathy slept over, and we continued to craft on Saturday until the girls were snowed off! Here is what I managed to make, thanks to Kathy for supplying the template.

Well as my friend Sarah put on facebook, I have crossed over to the dark side! I have never been a card maker, i think I have made two under duress ever. Julie Kettlewell a great stampin up demonstrator came to my Scrapstars retreat last September and did make n takes on the Saturday evening. I was so busy running around, I hardly had chance to look at anything, but Robyn talked me into buying an owl punch. I haven't even had it out of the bag, but Julie rang me in the new year and asked me if I would have a party, I don't normally like to have these parties as I never think I can get anyone to come and I don't like my friends to feel pressured into buying. BUT It was a great evening, everyone joined in, we had a great atmosphere and everyone enjoyed themselves. Thanks Julie, and thanks to everyone for coming. These are cards I made at julie's class the week before the party.

Don't know If you've ever had a look at the online shop the fruit pixie? Kirsty (Wiseman) put me onto it and the great thing is she has a pound shop. I was talking about downloading images to slip in the back of your layouts and build up little 3D corners on a page. These old fashioned cigarette cards work a treat and you get about 50 for £1. When you go on the site you just scroll down the page and select £1 shop.